Friday, July 2, 2010

Q: This isn't your first time working with an antagonist as the main character, correct?

Correct. I am also working with a main antagonist character in Certain Fate, who is Levenaude --in case some of you reading this do not know that.

Q: Would you say that Levenaude inspired you to have the main characters in the Magicians series to be antagonists?

No, not at all. I decided to have antagonists as the main characters for the Magicians series because I thought that would be a better way for the reader to really get involved in the story and stay interested.

Q: Nothing of Levenaude's character or negative personalities has gone into Celestria's character?

If it has, then it is simply a coincidence. Celestria and Levenaude may both be antagonists, but they are two entirely different characters. Levenaude is a criminal who is wanted by most everyone in his country, and Celestria is a Dark magician who has lost almost all her allies. Celestria of course has different characteristics to her because she is treated differently than Levenaude, and you have to remember that she is also in a situation unlike Levenaude's.

Q: What is something that is added on into your writing focuses and struggles when working with an antagonist as the main character?

I think a lot of more observation is added into it. Everything you have the character do you have to over-analyze and then observe why this would go along with the character's personality. You have to make sure there is a logic behind everything that your character does. Of course you should really do this with a protagonist as well, but I think the level of it is increased when suddenly you are working with the opposite of the hero in a story.

What is added on into the struggles I face is that I have to keep questioning everything these characters are thinking and so forth because they're Dark magicians, and it needs to make sense to the reader. You can't suddenly have the character do something that would go against their personality as a Dark magician.

Q: You once mentioned in The Magic of Light trilogy that as good magicians get better, the Dark magicians continue to advance in their skills as well. So even if a good magician is improving, there is always somebody who is better and can destroy that magician.

How do you still keep that theory in this series, or did that theory go away entirely with this series?

Yes, I did mention that. It was a discussion that Elainia had with Trisha. That theory would have been very similar if it had been two Dark magicians that had been talking, except it would have been the other way around.

It would seem as if what Elainia had told Trisha is not still in the Magicians series, but not all of the Dark magicians have been defeated in the Magicians series. There are still good magicians and there are still Dark in this series, so you will have to read for yourself to see how there is always someone who can be above you. With only five Dark magicians remaining, you will see how the good magicians are starting to think they'll be able to win over them all without having to fight at all.... and then you're going to see how they thought wrong.

Q: In The Magic of Light trilogy you mentioned a process in which the "Dark spirit" could be taken out of a Dark magician. Is there any chance of this kind of spell being in the Magicians series?

I do not believe that theory will stay with the Magicians series because it is a separate series. I think also I'm coming up with some different way for the Dark magicians to have a chance change what they have become. Besides, that spell --which I cannot remember the name of--was kind of a spell that the Dark magician did not really have to consent to in order to be changed. For the Magicians series there has to be something else that is a bit more challenging than speaking the words so long as the good magician is there and the Dark magician is there.

If you don't really understand what I'm talking about, don't worry. I'm pretty much throwing my old theories out the window, and it's back to the drawing board for me.